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Sunday Gritty Sundae

Saturday we ate out…for every. single. meal.  It was delicious all around, but we didn’t feel so hot afterwards.  Sunday we vowed to do some good eating in.  And we did!  For dinner, we had leftover tortilla soup…this stuff was even better the second time around (largely because I could now taste it) and we both had giant bowls.  Plus we froze two double-servings for later.  Because I got the giant pack of chicken thighs on sale for just over $5, this was a super economical creation as well! Hooray!

For breakfast, we had some old-ish apples and I remembered we had quick cooking grits in the cupboard. Easy easy breakfast to the rescue:

Cinnamon Apple Grits Breakfast Sundae

• 2 servings grits
• 5-6 small apples, peeled, cored and chopped
• 1/4 cup apple juice or cider
• 2 Tb sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon

1. Combine apples, juice, sugar and cinnamon over medium heat in a small saucepan, stirring to coat.
2. Cook away, stirring frequently to avoid burning, until apples are nice and soft and the liquid has cooked down into a nice syrup.
3. If the apples get too dry and all the liquid evaporates, add more juice or cider as needed.
4. While apples are cooking, prepare grits according to package directions.  I added a tiny bit of butter at the end to add a bit of flavor and extra creaminess to the grits!
5. Top grits with apples and dig in!

I’d recommend serving with biscuits and jam (which we didn’t have) or toast or maybe even more fruit on the side.  This bowl was really filling at the time, but didn’t last us all the way until dinner.  So tasty though.  Yum!

And for some fun, here are giveaways!

• Envirosax Giveaway at Jackson’s World
• Maple PB giveaway at I Walk In This World
• Holey Donuts (!!!) at Danica’s Daily

Mom’s Blogging Debut

Keep reading for a mini-guest post from my mom with a hard-core apple themed meal!

I am light on meals to post because Matt was out of town all weekend and I didn’t do a ton of cooking. Tomorrow or Thursday I’ll be posting a more successful version of my fried rice…Soy Squared Fried Rice.  Stay tuned!

Before we get to Mom, check out Missy Maintains for a Rudy’s Organic Bakery giveaway! These products look delicious!

Ok, on to mom…a little info first.  My mom is hilarious and has recently been getting really creative with her food! So when she sent me some pictures of her Sunday dinner this weekend I told her I’d feature it on my blog if she sent me a post to go with it!  Mom doesn’t have a blog (sad, but true), but she does have an Etsy site that is great! Guess who designed the banner??? 😉 As I wrote about before, she crochets like crazy and everyone in the family has piles and piles of afghans to show for it.  This is spectacular!  I love afghans, and Santana loves to dig them (maybe I will try to get a video of this sometimes), so it’s good that my mom keeps cranking them out!  With her surplus of afghans, she’s created Crochet By Shelly, where you can buy your very own, spectacular, hand-made afghan from my mom! All proceeds go to benefitting my mom make more afghans! I think she’d probably be up for suggestions or requests if you had a particular pattern or color that you wanted…we haven’t quite figured out the Alchemy section of the Etsy site, but there’s a way to do this! ANYWAY, check out my mom’s Etsy shop for all your afghan needs.  First, though, check out my mom’s Apple Butter Pork and Apple Pie Sunday dinner!

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On the roast, I don’t really have a recipe..

I browned it (peppered) with olive oil on all sides on the griddle since it was out from making grilled cheese last night. Chopped up a good size onion and placed in bottom of crock pot after adding some season salt.  Had some small carrots and threw some in.  Placed the roast in.  Added the rest of the carrots.  Put some apple butter (Mallory’s note: My mom makes this from scratch in the Crockpot!! I have the recipe and plan to try it soon…expect a post about it!) on the top.  Threw in some beer (surprise – it was the handy liquid and didn’t feel like opening up stock). Turned the roast once and added some more apple butter and some water.  Too much liquid now, so I took some out and put in a pan to make gravy with later. Have no fresh potatoes so I add a can at the end – you know those cans dad always has in the cupboard for chili. (Mallory’s note: these cans of potatoes are SO handy! Not fresh potatoes that you want to eat on their own, but great for soups or random things like this.)

 

We don’t have a picture of the final product all plated up, but Mom’s new to this blogging thing, so we’ll let it slide…if she sends one later, I’ll post an update! 🙂 She said the pork was AMAZING and you could taste the apple butter all the way through. Yum!

PIE:

• I’m weak – use Pillsbury dough.
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¼ cup flour
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon

Mix that stuff  ( I put in a little more because I over stuff it so when it cooks down – dad still has lots of apples).  Add the apples sliced.. the recipe calls for 6 – but I use the whole bag from the store… When the seasoning is right and I don’t’ have to buy at the store, I will guess how many.  Mix apples with above.. put in crust (don’t grease pan).    Cover with other crust.  Do the sealing, fluting and all that good baking stuff.  Add some slits to top crust to let the steam escape.  Cover with that crazy thing to keep the edges from burning… remove 10- 15 minutes before done.

425 – 40-50 minutes.. 

Serve over vanilla ice cream!

I am crazy craving apple pie now! Thanks mom!!!! Miss you!

αυγά rancheros?

First up, Santana teaches Matt how to do push ups! No matter what she is doing, if Matt tries to exercise in the middle of the living room, she POUNCES!  Her whole body wiggles and wags along with her tail and she looks happier than ever while bounding across the room to run under him, lick his face, pounce in front of him, and just generally play along with this super fun game of pushups!  It is crazy adorable and we love her for it!  This morning we decided she is the perfect dog for us because of her quirky awesomeness…and we concluded that this is because she is the dog-version of our favorite schvester, Dori.  They are puppy/person soulmates, for sure.

  

Second, some yummy giveaways:

Erin at I Walk In This World is giving away a ton of Mr. Kracker products and asking about whole foods.  Whole foods! Hooray!

Over in Jackson’s World you can enter a giveaway for some Holey Donuts….I need these. Anytime they send me an email, I spend most of the day debating whether or not I need some mail-order donuts. 

Can we count Holey Donuts as a Wholey Food? I think so. 

Ok, enough drooling…on to some cooking.  I have a few meals backlogged that I want to post, but will just spread them out over a few days.  First up, a Greek-inspired breakfast (we have been on a Mediterranean kick lately, I guess).

You all know about my recent obsession with mexi-breakfasts.  I usually get really excited when there are huevos rancheros on a menu…I love the mix of the runny fried egg, creamy beans, crunchy tortilla, spicy salsa…it’s all wonderful for me.

We had leftover gyro meat from an amazing meal we shared from  Mr.. Gyro in Greenwood (this place is SPECTACULAR), and I turned it into a greeky rancheros type thing.  I may need a suggestion for a title for this meal, since all of my ideas have been pretty lame. 

Greek Breakfast Heaven

• 2 pitas
• 1/2 cup cooked chickpeas
• 1/4 of a small onion, chopped
• dried parsley
• 1/4 cup water
• minced garlic
• 3 Tb shredded cheddar cheese
• Leftover Gyro meat
• 4 fried eggs

1. Toast pitas until a little bit crispy
2. While toasting, sauté onion and garlic until soft. Add parsley, water and chickpeas, cooking over medium-high heat until water is mostly absorbed and chickpeas are heated through. Mash chickpeas to desired consistency (I left it fairly chunky).
3. Spread chickpea mash on pitas and sprinkle cheese ton top.  Pop back in the oven for a couple minutes to melt the cheese. 
4. Heat gyro meat.  We just reheated in the microwave for a couple minutes.  Our leftover meat had a little yummy sauce on it, so that got mixed in as well and when it reheated (with a tiny bit of water added to keep it from drying out) it made a really flavorful sauce. 
5. Put the reheated meat and any sauce on top of pitas.
6. Top with fried eggs.  I aim for over-medium.  

YUM!  This was sooo satisfying.  Definitely not a light every-day breakfast.  But a wonderful weekend treat that held us over for quite a while!  We definitely got our protein in for the day! Also note in the second picture how perfectly my two eggs turned out!! The two I made for Matt were not as pretty, but I was pretty pleased with myself for the second batch. 

 

 

Coming soon: Big S Farms Salsa redeemed! Stay tuned!

Falafeleftovers

I love leftovers! I am extremely satisfied by using up random bits of leftover things throughout the week and get really frustrated when food is wasted or spoils. So last night’s dinner was very fulfilling for me.

When we made falafel from scratch the other day, Matt had 3 patties for lunch the next day, and we froze the last four for later use. Tuesday, I took them out of the freezer and defrosted them in the fridge, and then popped them in the toaster oven to heat up while I put together the rest of dinner, which largely came from our CSA box this week!

Falafel Chop Salad

• 1 head Red Leaf Lettuce, washed and torn
• Salad Dressing to Coat (we used parmesan pepper or something like that)
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 medium cucumber, chopped
• ¼ small white onion, chopped
• ¼ block Beecher’s Flagship cheddar, chopped
• 2 small pitas
• Olive oil
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Italian seasoning
• Grated Parmesan
• 4 leftover falafel patties 

1. Toss lettuce with dressing, just enough to coat lightly. Split between two plates and top with veggies and cheddar.
2. Brush pitas with a light coating of olive oil and garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasoning, and parmesan to taste. Place these on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees until toasty (10-20 minutes…keep your eye on them!). Remove from oven, let cool for a minute, then quarter.
3. Toast falafel patties on a tray in the toaster over until warmed through and re-crisped.
4. Serve salad topped with crumbled falafel and pita crisps on the side.

Super easy! I topped each of my pieces of pita with a heaping pile of lettuce and veggies and cheese and ate like a mini open-faced sandwich. So delicious and really satisfying for our tummies…also very very filling. We debated putting some leftover black beans (from breakfast burritos this past weekend) on the salad as well, but I’m glad we didn’t, since I probably wouldn’t have finished.

Matt gets no carrots because of his OAS… stupid allergies! Also, speaking of Matt, he did an adorably wonderful post about the Mallory Color Guessing Game, which he made for me when we started dating and he taught me hexadecimal! Fun!

Sunday, Beginning and End

Sunday morning (late morning, anyway) started with a repeat of my open-faced bagel sandwiches, with shredded cheddar since we were out of slices.  This is ridiculously satisfying…I wish I had a picture of the wonderfully running yolk after you cut into the middle of the bagel! Next time I will get one!

I surprised Matt with a side for our bagel….cinnamon apples! YUM! I’ve never made these before, but I have a bunch of apples left in the fridge and felt like we needed some fruit to kick start our day.  Very very easy to make:

• Chop 2 apples into 16 pieces each (8 wedges, each cut in half)
• Toss in a small pan with about 1/2 cup of apple juice, 1 Tablespoon brown sugar, 1 teaspoon granulated sugar, and cinnamon to taste.
• Boil the hell out of them until they are soft and gooey.  If you like your apples more firm, decrease the apple juice, more soft, increase it!

 

yum yum yum yum yummmm!

We ran errands, splurged on some soft pretzels in the middle of the day, and then came home to make some delicious comfort food for dinner!

Sweet & Spicy Pepper Meatloaf

This recipe was adapted from Alton Brown’s Good Eats Meatloaf, and changed up based on what we had in the apartment.  When my mom makes meatloaf, there is a disgusting layer of grease that builds up around/on top of the meat that then gets drained off…it has always dissuaded me from making meatloaf.  When I came across this recipe, which avoids that problem for the most part, I was thrilled!

What you need:

• 3 oz crackers
• pepper
• cayenne
• chili powder
• dry thyme
• 1/2 an onion
• 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 1.5 lbs ground beef
• salt
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• cumin
• Worcestershire sauce
• hot sauce
• honey

What you do:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
• Pulse cracker, pepper, cayenne, chili powder and dry thyme in a food processor until fine and add to beef.
• Pulse onion and red pepper in food processor to a fine chop and add to the bowl. This made a gorgeous orange/red mix!
• Combine the cracker mixture, onion mixture and ground beef with salt and egg until well mixed, but not overworked. 

• Press mixture into loaf pan(s).  We used a mini loaf pan and got three loaves out of it.  This is a great way to make loaves to freeze and reheat later!  You can also do it in one large pan.
• On a parchment-lined baking sheet, turn the molded loaves out and bake for 10 minutes.

• Combine ketchup, cumin, Worcestershire, hot sauce and honey.
• After 10 minutes, brush glaze on loaves and return to oven.

• Bake until internal temperature reaches 155 degrees.  For our mini-loaves this took about 20-30 more minutes. 
• Remove from oven and let rest for a couple minutes, then place on paper towel-lined plate to remove some of  the grease from the bottom.
• Slice and serve!

   

We served with Parmesan Red Mashers (baby red potatoes mashed with a bit of parmesan, a tiny bit of cream, a pat of butter, salt and pepper) and my Creamy Bacon Brussels Sprouts.  This is one of my absolutely most favorite veggie side dishes, and a stellar example of how bacon makes the world a better place.

We were in major food coma state after dinner, but we relaxed, watch a movie and were completely satisfied with our comfort food for the weekend!